


kissed by light

by Potoo



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Incestuous Undertones, M/M, if you hadn't guessed from the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2744267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potoo/pseuds/Potoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ygritte has red hair, freckles and blue eyes while Jeyne is shy with chestnut curls and eyes like pools of melting chocolate. All Jon and Robb see in their respective lovers is one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kissed by light

No one claimed she was pretty. Jon knew pretty girls from Winterfell, where Greyjoy had not tired of pointing out the prettiest girls, although the Turncloak had used quite different words to describe their beauty. Ygritte was not pretty like Jeyne Poole or beautiful like his sister Sansa, but she didn’t need to be with her brilliant blue eyes and her blazing red curls, with her sharp tongue and rose-coloured stars on her cheeks. No, Ygritte wasn’t pretty like all the other girls he had known. But her laugh was sincere, and when snowflakes melted in her hair and painted it a dark red, Jon was mesmerized.

Ygritte was like no girl he had known. She could fight and run and spar with him and defeat him. She was brave and quick, and when she sat a horse, she looked almost regal. Jon would try to squint at her through the soft snowfall and his sight would blur and she would look like a warrior prince riding into battle. Only then she dismounted and laughed at him and made a bawdy joke, and he realised she would never wear a crown.

It was moments like these that made him doubt his sanity. It was not that he actually mistook her for a King he had never known and a boy he had known too well; the differences were too great, no matter her fiery hair and azure eyes and chapped lips. She was soft to his touch and pleasant, and when they lay together and she cried out his name, it was in a high-pitched voice, like a girl’s but so much more demanding than Jon had ever believed a girl to be. Her hair was bright while his had been more the auburn color of his mother’s braids, her eyes were brighter still while his had been colored in the fashion of the night sky just before sunrise, and there had been three freckles on his face for every one of hers. Her colors were paler than his; lighter and not so heavy, airy and less strong than his.

In the end, though, it wasn’t her hair or her eyes or her laughter that reminded him of that boy he used to know.

She was as warm as Robb had been. There was no difference in the way Jon’s skin tingled when he touched her or him, and he desperately, desperately missed the nights they’d spent huddled together in Robb’s bed, although he couldn’t say why. (He could say why, but he didn’t want to.)

They were so similar, and he told himself that was why nobody could fault him for whispering Robb’s name once when they slept together.

-

They all claimed she was pretty. Robb saw it: she was beautiful with her long brown hair coiling around smooth skin covering her bare shoulders; with the gentle eyes of a doe and those long, dark lashes; with her quiet voice and her full lips. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was the girl he had broken his vow for; of course she was pretty, he argued to himself.  
Jeyne was pretty in everything she did. She was pretty when she bowed her head to his mother, she was pretty when she took up a needle and sewed, she was pretty when she looked at him with adoration in her big brown eyes. She was pretty when she threw her hair back and moaned his name. She was pretty when she touched his cheek reverently.

Yet he had seen her hair before; he had seen her eyes before; he had heard her soft laughter before and he had touched her white skin before. They were the hair, the eyes, the laughter, the skin of another. She was cool to the touch, like he had been, and the smiles she gave him were as sacred as those he had given him.

She was pretty and even if Robb hadn’t been at first, he was certain he loved her now.  
At times, though, he wondered who it really was he loved. And that was a thought so appalling he didn’t want to follow it further.

She had dark hair, white skin and plush red lips desperate to be kissed.

If Jon had dark hair, white skin and plush red lips too, it did not matter.

Jon wasn’t here with him. Jeyne was, and that mattered, he tried so hard to make himself believe.

-

“Who’s Robb?” Ygritte whispered.

Jon pretended he couldn’t hear her.

“Robb. You said his name while we were fucking.”

Jon turned away from her. The fire had almost gone out, but in the distance he could see the Wall. It would only be another day’s march. The others of the Free Folk were huddled closer to the fire, but Ygritte and Jon had found their own, more secluded spot.

It was no use lying to her. Not about him.

“My brother,” he said and immediately corrected himself, “my half-brother.” It made no difference, a part of him knew that all too well. It made all the difference, another insisted.

She remained quiet, and he silently thanked her for it.

-

“Do you wish to return to Winterfell, my lord?” Jeyne whispered.

They were lying in their bed at Riverrun; it was large enough to hold ten men, but all Robb wanted was to have her curled around him like this. She knew his heart without talking, he’d always known that. She was a blessing.

“I need to,” Robb said instead of actually answering her question. “One day. It is my seat and my home. Mother wants to go home.”

She remained quiet.

Robb continued. His voice was barely more than a whisper itself. “I wish to return North, Jeyne. My brothers were murdered and my sisters are gone, but there’s still...” His mother, one could have said, who was all that was left of his family now. “...my brother Jon Snow.”

“You never told me about him,” she said gently.  
So Robb told her about Jon Snow.

-

“You miss your brother, Jon Snow?” she asked him and he felt as if she had punched him. He couldn’t breathe. The sun shone at them, hard and unforgiving, but he felt infinitely cold. The Wall lay behind them and they had been marching the whole day, hiding whenever there were sounds. Only Jon knew no rangers were patrolling the Wall; too few men would be left for that, and those too badly trained.

Jon shrugged.  
Ygritte eyed him warily.

“My brothers,” Jon answered quietly. “Robb is the eldest son of Lady Stark. There’s Bran and Rickon too, and my sisters, Sansa and Arya.” And when he thought of them for too long, his heart would freeze, he knew. They were gone, far down in the South, and he wouldn’t see Arya with the small sword he had placed in her hand; nor would he hear one of Sansa’s happy songs; nor would he touch Robb’s red curls again, ever again.

“I don’t have no siblings, Jon Snow,” she told him, “and never missed them, truth be told. We could look for them if you want, when we get to the Wall and so on. Where are they?”

Jon blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. He had broken his vows with Ygritte, he could break his vows again and ride for Robb’s war... with her by his side, he could fight the Lannisters, and they’d free his little sisters. They would all return to Winterfell.

Yet somehow, he couldn’t imagine Ygritte in a room with Robb. It felt wrong. His eyes grew bleary.

“South,” he said, “far South.” His head throbbed. “Robb is fighting a war. We could go to him. He would like you, you’re very much alike, him and you...” The sun was merciless.  
Ygritte smiled, and there was something knowing in her smile. You know nothing, Jon Snow, he thought she’d say.  
Instead she snorted.  
“I’d like to go South,” she just said and that was that.

They would stand with each other, Jon thought, red, flaming hair and blue eyes and freckles and laughter. The thought seemed to choke him.  
It would never come so far, he knew, and that hurt more.

-

Robb woke from a nightmare and there were arms around him instantly. He only realized he’d been thrashing when he stopped.

“Shh,” Jeyne whispered as if she were treating with a spooked horse. “Shh. Shh.”  
Robb tried to speak but could only sob.

“They were dead,” he told her, his voice rough and raw and terrified. “Father and mother and Bran and Rickon and Sansa and Arya and-” He sobbed again. A great King he was, crying in his wife’s arms, he knew; yet he didn’t find the strength in his heart to stop the tears. It had been vivid, and the smell... “-the crows had picked at Jon’s eyes but it was him, very much, and he was...”

“Shh,” Jeyne said again and suddenly, Robb felt like he could breathe again. Her hand was in his hair and he clung to her.

When an eternity had passed, he breathed in deeply.

“I miss them,” he murmured and that was only half of it.

“I know,” she replied although she couldn’t. She shouldn’t.

He missed Jon like he would miss an arm, and worse, missed him like his heart, missed his hidden smiles and his soft skin and his trust, missed his lips and touch and scent.

“I’m sorry,” he said and prayed she wouldn’t understand.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for the last round of the lj got_exchange (an awesome!!! exchange with many talented people!) and decided to put it up 6 months later. Haha.


End file.
